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Explore / Instruments / Veena

Play it yourself

Veena

Karaikudi S. Subramanian, a ninth-generation player, says the veena has three dimensions: sliding, fingering and pulling. The hand on the frets does all three. Press a fret and try them, with sounds cut from one real performance.

Tap the veena to look inside
A Saraswati veena seen from the audience: the large ribbed bowl (kudam) at the left, the long neck with 24 brass frets set in black wax, the round gourd under the neck, and the carved yali head at the right.

The neck, close up

Press a fret to pluck it. Keep holding: drag up or down to pull, along the neck to slide.
← higher notes, toward the bowlPress a fret

recordedpitch-shifted from the nearest recorded noteshifted more than 3 semitones

Keys choose the fret. On the neck: touch to press and pluck, drag up or down to pull, drag along to slide.

Saopen
Nothing playing yet. Every sound here is cut from one public-domain recording by L Ramakrishnan. Six frets play his real plucks; the others are pitch-shifted from the nearest one, and say so when they play.Nothing playing yet. Six frets play real plucks by L Ramakrishnan; the rest are pitch-shifted and say so.

Your last note

White: the pitch of the last note played here, exact, from the speed the page set.

Pulls are capped at about three semitones, about as far as the player’s pulls go in the recorded ‘Ri’. Sources do not say how far a pull can go.

Fret positions drawn for an 84.5 cm string with ideal ratios; real frets are set by ear. You play the main string, the one a leading player says most playing happens on. The lower strings are drawn but silent: the recording has no plain low ‘Sa’, and the low ‘Pa’ it does have does not show which string it came from. The lit string stands for the main string; which string sits where across the neck is not shown in our sources. Twelve frets to the octave, 24 in all; the twelve positions are ‘Sa’, R1, R2 (also G1), G2 (also R3), G3, M1, M2, ‘Pa’, D1, D2 (also N1), N2 (also D3), N3, then upper ‘Sa’. Sources: CompMusic blog, 2011 · Sruti, 1998 · Schachter, Music Theory Online, 2015 · Sahapedia, Karaikudi S. Subramanian · India Currents, “The Veena Maker” · Wikipedia, “String vibration” · Chauhan, Singru and Vathsan, 2024 · Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Tamil Wikipedia, “Veenai” · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena” · D’Source, string attachment · Press Information Bureau, 2013 · Wikipedia, “Melakarta”

Try these

1Fingering

Pluck the open string (‘Sa’), then press ‘Ri’, ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’. These four are single real plucks.

2Sliding

Press ‘Ri’ and, while it rings, slide to ‘Ma’ without plucking again. The note steps up at each fret.

3Pulling

Press ‘Ri’ and drag across the string, then back. Then hear the player do it.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Sahapedia, Karaikudi S. Subramanian · Wikipedia, “Gamaka (music)” · Schachter, Music Theory Online, 2015 · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena” · Wikipedia, “String vibration” · Bol Processor, “Sarasvati vina”

On a real veena the other hand plucks. Here pressing a fret plucks too, and Pluck plucks again.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena” · Tamil Wikipedia, “Veenai” · V&A, IS.82-1890 · Sahapedia, Karaikudi S. Subramanian

Inside the veena

Tap a part

1
How the sound is made

From the finger to the room

Step 1

Pluck

three side stringslittle fingerbridgestringabout 17%wire ringindex and middle fingers

About 17% of the way from the bridge: the point a study of one veena calls standard.

The index and middle fingers usually pluck a playing string, with the nails or with wire rings worn on the fingers. The little finger plays the three side strings to keep time and hold the drone.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena” · Tamil Wikipedia, “Veenai” · V&A, IS.82-1890 · Chauhan, Singru and Vathsan, 2024

Step 2

Fret and pull

brass fretstring pressed on the fretpulled alongthe fretpitch rises ↑wax, scooped between frets

The other hand presses the string against one of the 24 frets set in wax. The fret sets how much of the string vibrates, and so the note. Pulling the string sideways along the fret tightens it and raises the pitch, which is how many gamakas (ornaments) are played.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena” · Wikipedia, “String vibration” · Bol Processor, “Sarasvati vina” · Sahapedia, Karaikudi S. Subramanian

Step 3

Bridge

top boardtouches on and offbrass, gently curvedwooden bridgeleaves at a tangentfrom the tailto the frets

Not to scale; the curve is exaggerated.

At the bowl end the string crosses a small wooden bridge topped with gently curved brass. The string leaves the curve at a tangent and touches part of it on and off as it swings, which C. V. Raman linked to the strong overtones in the veena’s sound.

We found no openly licensed recording that compares this bridge with a sharp one, so there is nothing to play here.

Sources: C. V. Raman, 1921 · IIT Madras seminar, 2021 · Thanjavur Veenai GI filing · Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena”

Step 4

Bowl

air insidetop board movesmost of the soundbridgebowl (kudam)wall nearly still

A cut through the bowl, not to scale. Arrows: where most of the sound leaves, in tests on one veena.

The bridge passes the vibration into the top board of the carved kudam. In tests on one veena the top board sent out most of the sound, and the air in the bowl added a resonance of its own.

We found no openly licensed recording of the bowl or the top board on its own, so there is nothing to play here.

Sources: Chauhan, Singru and Vathsan, 2024 · IIT Madras seminar, 2021

Questions people ask

How do veena players bend notes?

Besides sliding from fret to fret, the player can pull the string sideways along a fret. That tightens the string and raises its pitch, so the note can rise and fall while the finger stays on the same fret. Glides and oscillations like these are called gamakas, and they help give each raga its character.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing; Sahapedia, Karaikudi S. Subramanian; Bol Processor, “Sarasvati vina”; Wikipedia, “String vibration”; Wikipedia, “Gamaka (music)”; Schachter, Music Theory Online, 2015

How many frets does a veena have?

24, usually brass, set in a ridge of black wax made mainly of beeswax and charcoal powder. With twelve frets to an octave, each playing string covers two octaves, and the whole instrument about three and a half. The frets are set by ear, and because wax lets them shift, players have them reset from time to time, about once a year by some accounts.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing; Press Information Bureau, 2013; Tamil Wikipedia, “Veenai”; Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena”; CompMusic blog, 2011; Sruti, 1998

How many strings does a veena have?

Seven. Four playing strings run over the frets and are tuned to ‘Sa’ and ‘Pa’ in two octaves. Three side strings run along the neck, tuned to ‘Sa’, ‘Pa’ and upper ‘Sa’, and are played with the little finger for rhythm and drone. Unlike the sitar, the veena has no sympathetic strings.

Sources: Thanjavur Veenai GI filing; Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena”; Tamil Wikipedia, “Veenai”; CompMusic blog, 2011

What is the difference between a veena and a sitar?

The Saraswati veena is mainly a Carnatic (South Indian) instrument; the sitar is mainly Hindustani (North Indian). The veena’s 24 frets are fixed in wax, and it has seven strings and no sympathetic strings. The sitar’s frets can be moved, and it carries many extra strings that ring in sympathy.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Saraswati veena”; Thanjavur Veenai GI filing; CompMusic blog, 2011

Hear it live

Upcoming veena concerts

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Strings that are never fretted, played open to hold the drone under a raga.

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Mridangam

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Take it apart →Plucked strings

Veena

The Saraswati veena: brass frets set in wax along a long neck.

You are hereReeds

Harmonium

Hand-pumped bellows push air through metal reeds, one per key.

Take it apart →
Sources

Recording: “rAga kIravANi” by L Ramakrishnan, Internet Archive, Public Domain (2004). Cut into single notes and short passages, loudness evened out; pitch-shifted in your browser where marked; pulls and slides change the playback speed. Files used: veena-sa.mp3 (plain ‘Sa’, the open string, 1.6 s, at 6:13); veena-ri.mp3 (plain ‘Ri’, 1.7 s, at 0:34); veena-ma.mp3 (plain ‘Ma’, 1.05 s, at 1:47); veena-pa.mp3 (plain ‘Pa’, 1.72 s, at 2:37); veena-sa-upper.mp3 (plain upper ‘Sa’, 1.1 s, at 4:55); veena-ri-upper.mp3 (plain upper ‘Ri’, 0.85 s, at 6:00); gamaka-kampita.mp3 (‘Ri’ pulled five times, 1.58 s, at 1:15); side-strings.mp3 (the side strings, 1.14 s, at 0:53).

What is real here: six frets play a single real pluck at its own speed: the open string (‘Sa’) and the frets for ‘Ri’, ‘Ma’, ‘Pa’, upper ‘Sa’ and upper ‘Ri’. We found no openly licensed recording of a plain ‘Ga’, ‘Da’ or ‘Ni’ on this veena, or of anything plain above upper ‘Ri’, so the other 19 frets play the nearest recorded note sped up or slowed down, and say so. Your pulls and slides change the speed of the same recording. Nothing is synthesized. The recording never shows the player’s hands, so where each note sits on the neck is our reading of its pitch, and “pulls” is our reading of the ‘Ri’ clip: its pitch passes through the in-between values without a new pluck.

Side strings: played between phrases at 0:53 (identified from the sound; the recording does not label it). The beat switch repeats that one recording in your browser.

Drawing: our own, modelled on photographs of vinas in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009.531 and 89.4.204, public domain) and on Wikimedia Commons photographs by Kelvin Kay (CC BY-SA 3.0), Ctac (CC BY-SA 4.0), FactEcho (CC BY 3.0), Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (CC BY 2.0), Pp391 (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Thamizhpparithi Maari (CC BY-SA 2.0). No photograph appears in the drawing. Fret positions are an illustration for an 84.5 cm string with ideal ratios.

  1. Thanjavur Veenai, Geographical Indication application (statement of case), filed by the Thanjavur Musical Instruments Workers Co-operative Cottage Industrial Society; copy hosted by oriGIn
  2. Aparna Karthikeyan, "The sweet music of jack wood," People’s Archive of Rural India
  3. Wikipedia, "Saraswati veena"
  4. Anirudh Prabhu, "The Veena Maker," India Currents
  5. B. Baral, Shruti K and Vijay G (NID Bengaluru), "Saraswathi Veena Making: Veena Carving," D’Source, IIT Bombay
  6. C. Chauhan, P. M. Singru and R. Vathsan, "Sound radiation patterns of the Sarasvati Veena and their relation with the modal behavior of its top plate," Journal of Measurements in Engineering 12(1), published January 2024 (accepted 2023), doi:10.21595/jme.2023.23505
  7. Tamil Wikipedia, "Veenai" (in Tamil)
  8. C. V. Raman (1921), "On some Indian stringed instruments," Proceedings of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science 7: 29-33
  9. B. Baral, Shruti K and Vijay G (NID Bengaluru), "Saraswathi Veena Making: String Attachment," D’Source, IIT Bombay
  10. "Veena: In Conversation with Karaikudi S. Subramanian," Sahapedia
  11. Xavier Serra, "Indian Instruments," CompMusic project blog, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2011)
  12. Press Information Bureau, Government of India, "Thanjavur Veena to Get GI Status Soon" (K. Parameswaran, February 2013)
  13. Wikipedia, "Raghunatha Nayak"
  14. "Semfest on Saraswati Veena in Bangalore," Sruti magazine, 1 May 1998: seminar report by B. R. C. Iyengar, an interview with the veteran fret-setter Nageswara Rao, and a note by the musicologist R. Sathyanarayana
  15. Horniman Museum and Gardens, London, Sarasvati vina, Tanjore model, 2001.300 (collection record)
  16. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vina, India, late 18th century, 2009.531 (collection API record and public-domain photograph)
  17. Wikipedia, "Yali (mythology)"
  18. Victoria and Albert Museum, Saraswati vina (Sruti vina), South India, 1870-90, IS.82-1890, gallery label
  19. Wikipedia, "String vibration" (Mersenne’s laws)
  20. Bernard Bel, "Sarasvati vina," Bol Processor project (phrases by Srikumar K. Subramanian)
  21. IIT Madras, Department of Mechanical Engineering, seminar abstract "Vibro-acoustic Studies on Thanjavur Veena" (speaker Borade Jagdish S, 22 July 2021)
  22. Wikipedia, "Gamaka (music)"
  23. Michael Schachter (2015), "Structural Levels in South Indian Music," Music Theory Online 21(4)
  24. Wikipedia, "Melakarta"

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